Electrical safety in Hotels – How to protect your guests

Apr 12, 2012M3 StaffPropertyComments Off on Electrical safety in Hotels – How to protect your guestsLike

Taking electrical safety precautions to protect your Hotel guests and your staff makes moral, legal and financial sense. A poorly maintained piece of electrical safety equipment can seriously injure or at the very worse even kill a user.

Therefore as an employer or the owner of a business – especially in the hotel or tourist trade – to ignore the risk of faulty appliances would be unacceptable.

As well as the risk to human life, there is also the risk of a hefty fine by the Health and Safety Executive.

Nick Walls from Manchester-based Walls Electrical Contractors says: “As a business you could find yourself in court facing a fine or imprisonment if you do not take your responsibilities to protect staff and customers seriously”.
“Of course the real cost of accidents is much higher than this; the pain and suffering, loss of reputation if you are in the hotel or tourist industry. Damaged equipment, replacement staff costs, increased insurance premiums and the potential victim’s own legal costs will far exceed any fine you are given.

Hotel electrical safety failings can hit the headlines

You only need to watch the news or read the newspapers to find daily examples of staff or customers being hurt by a faulty electrical appliance. A recent HSE court case heard how one employee sustained a 240 volt electric shock that broke both shoulders whilst attempting to a test of newly manufactured appliance that had been incorrectly wired to the mains lead. It turned out there had been exposed metal in the test area and there had been no PAT test of the mains lead prior to the live test.

The employers were prosecuted under The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 (No 14), The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992 (No 3) paragraph 1 and received a fine.

Employers are required by the Health and Safety law to ensure that all of their electrical installations and portable electrical appliances are safe. Portable Appliance Testing (PAT Testing) basically involves the periodic testing of regular electrical appliances within a commercial or domestic setting.

This includes itemssuch as kettles, TV’s lamps etc. to identify any possible faults which could make the equipment unsafe.